Good news for Kings fans despite this intense 140-141 loss to the Bucks: progress is being made on converting Harry Giles into their own version of Giannis Antetokounmpo. The stats don’t lie. Giles outscored Giannis 18 to 17, and outrebounded him 7 to 7 (a tie in this case is a win for Giles because Giannis is an MVP candidate and Giles is just a bundle of potential and intrigue). We can extrapolate out and say that he outplayed Giannis this game.
The nifty passing that Giles sometimes displays didn’t result in many assists, but that doesn’t it wasn’t there, necessarily. It just means he didn’t get assists for it. That’s the problem with assists. If your teammate doesn’t convert the bucket, it means that you could’ve thrown the nicest pass ever and you won’t get credit. Great players can solve that by regularly assisting on wide open dunks (or by playing with dudes who never miss), but that’s not where the Kings are right now. Everyone on their team misses unless it’s Kosta Koufos shooting a free-throw line floater.
If Marvin Bagley really is injured, which would suck, the Kings would need Giles to step up a little bit if they want to remain in the playoff picture. It’s going to be hard anyway since the bottom of the West looks pretty intense right now, but Giles continuing to show what he showed against the Bucks (who are the best team in the league so that’s impressive right there) would give them a better chance. Then again, not every team has interior defense that is as mysteriously porous as Milwaukee.